Not Us
by Kyizi
Summary: Tag to 'The Long Goodbye' John and Elizabeth sort out a few things.


**Not Us**

**By Kyizi**

**Disclaimer:** Stargate Atlantis and all related items do not belong to me. Only the Story and its related original ideas and characters are mine. No copyright infringement intended.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers/Timeline:** This started as a short episode tag to 'The Long Goodbye' and ended up a little longer than I'd intended.

**Feedback:** Is always appreciated, please let me know what you think.

**Email:** kyizifanfic(at)hotmail(dot)com

**Group:** KyiziFic

**Notes:** So those of you who bet I wouldn't be able to keep myself out of the Atlantis genre for very long just won! I couldn't help myself. I have two epic Atlantis fics just waiting to be written, but I need to know I'm getting the characters right, so I really hope you guys will let me know if they seem to be in character, before I even think about writing the epics.

xxxxx

It was her fault. It wasn't something she wanted to acknowledge, really, but the fact was that it was true. It was her fault that he had been chosen.

From the moment she had woken up unable to control her own body, she had done nothing but make things worse. She wasn't the type of person to blame herself unnecessarily, well, no more than the next person, but she could, with all surety, state that it was her fault that John Sheppard had been chosen to host Thalan.

The moment that she had realised what Phoebus had planned, she had begun to fight, to scream and shout, but all she had done was make matters worse. The more she had protested against things, the more that had been exactly what Phoebus had chosen to do. It didn't seem to matter that she was lessening her own chances of winning the war she was still living, choosing John would hurt Elizabeth the most and that was just too good an opportunity to pass up, it seemed.

She knew that Phoebus wasn't evil, not in the way she wished she could brand the woman, at least. She wished that she could just set that tag to her and leave it alone, but that wasn't the way Elizabeth Weir worked. She was trained to get to the root of any problem and that was where she had found herself, in the recesses of Phebus' memories, watching as the woman's family was destroyed piece by piece in a war as relentless as the Wraith were hungry. It was enough to make anyone angry and the vindictiveness that she had witnessed had been the result.

Phoebus had taken great pleasure in a lot of things whilst she possessed Elizabeth's body and Elizabeth was only glad that giving in to the pleasure of killing hadn't entered into the equation. No, Phoebus was too close to death to waste excess energy on anything other than her last enemy. Torturing Elizabeth along the way, however, that had been fun for her and now Elizabeth was left with a lot of memories and feelings she wasn't quite sure what to do with. She was only glad there was one memory she hadn't been left with, because knowing that it had been her finger to pull the trigger that killed John Sheppard was one memory she didn't think she'd be able to live with.

"Thought I might find you here."

Elizabeth jumped, startled by his voice, and turned to face him as he stepped out onto the balcony, smiling softly at him. "Seems I'm easier to find when I'm myself."

"Maybe I'm just a better hunter than Thalan was."

"Maybe," Elizabeth said sceptically. "Or maybe I'm just more predictable than I thought."

John shook his head and stepped closer to her, leaning onto the railing to look at her. "Nah, I heard Zelenka and McKay've been looking for you for about an hour."

She cringed. "I still haven't put my radio back on."

He shrugged. "Me either. Technically speaking, Caldwell's still in charge for another," he checked his watch, "twenty three minutes and ten, sorry nine seconds."

"Carson just wants to be sure we're one hundred percent."

"I know. Must've been pretty weird to watch us doing…well, all the stuff we did while we were them."

"Yeah," she said, not meeting his gaze. "Must've been." Somehow she knew that neither of them were talking about the hunt to kill each other. "How's Ronon?" she asked.

"He's gonna be fine. Beckett says he'll be up and about in no time."

"Good. I'm glad."

"Elizabeth," he said softly and she finally looked him in the eye. "It wasn't your fault. You weren't you."

"I know, but I still remember everything. It's a wonder that no one else was killed."

"Yeah, but they really only wanted each other." Her lips twitched and he smirked. "Dead, that is."

"Of course." She smirked briefly. After a moment, though, she couldn't stop her thoughts from drifting again. "Can I ask you a question, John?"

"Sure." He inclined his head. "I might not _answer_, but you can always ask."

"Do you feel anything?"

John was pretty sure his heart just stopped.

"When you pull a trigger and you know that you've wounded or killed someone, do you feel anything?"

"Oh, right." He took a deep breath and looked out over the ocean. "It depends, I guess. Sometimes it happens so fast that you don't have time to feel. When you're in a combat situation you're just thinking about survival, about getting yourself and your team home." She nodded, waiting until he continued. "But when you have to look into someone's eyes when you pull the trigger…then, yeah, you definitely feel."

"But what?"

He really didn't want to answer, but the look in her eyes was pleading. She needed to know. "It depends who it is."

"An enemy?"

"'Enemy' isn't necessarily as easy as it sounds. You can have an enemy cause, a people or race that's fighting against your people as a whole and you don't know them, not personally, and that's different from staring someone you truly hate in the face when you shoot them."

The intensity with which he was looking at her left her in no doubt as to what he was referring; Koyla. As much as she didn't want those memories to surface, she could still recall vividly the look in John's eyes when he had pulled that trigger. She didn't think she'd ever truly understand what that felt like, she'd hoped she never would, but now? She just wasn't sure.

"What about me?" she asked, just needing to know. "If Thalan had got me, if he had shot me and you could remember it now, w-"

"Don't."

"B-"

"Just don't. That's one question I can't answer," he said softly and not even he was sure if it was because he couldn't or wouldn't. He'd been in the position before where he was responsible for the death of people he knew and cared about, but that was different and he didn't think about it. He didn't want to think about what could have happened, because any other outcome was unacceptable.

She nodded. "Okay."

"Why?" he asked, after a moment just looking at her.

"Because…she felt…it gave her…God, John, she got a kick out of it! Killing made her feel powerful and, and excited, and it made her want _more_ and I could feel it too. I guess I just need to know that if I _ever_have to do that, that if I ever have to…that it won't be like that, that it won't-"

"It won't."

There was something in his voice that made her stop and look at him. "But how do you _know_?"

"Because I know _you _and it won't." He stared her hard in the eyes. "There's no way that you'd be able to kill anyone and not feel anything but remorse and pain and guilt."

"Is that what you feel?"

"Sometimes."

It was one word, but somehow it was enough. She nodded and smiled at him. Together they stared out at the ocean in silence, but it was comfortable.

"There's just one thing I'm curious about...why me?"

Or it had been comfortable. Elizabeth frowned at him, eternally grateful for her excellent poker face. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"I mean, why did Phoebus choose me to play host to Thalan?"

She shook her head. "I have no idea."

John looked at her speculatively. "You sure about that?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He shrugged. "Just seems to me that she chose everything tactically, made sure that she had the upper hand. So I'm just curious, why would she choose the only person who knows this city as well as you to host her enemy?"

Now Elizabeth was beginning to look uncomfortable, but she merely shook her head and turned to look out at the ocean. "I guess we'll never know."

"I guess not."

"I mean, it's not as if we can really take anything either of them said at face value. They were manipulating the situation as best they could."

"I know." He shook his head as he turned so that they were standing side by side. "Luckily," he continued, "Teyla agreed without taking too much pleasure in making me uncomfortable."

"Well, maybe not everything," she muttered, but he heard her anyway.

John frowned. "What do you mean?"

She smiled a little, but he didn't think she seemed happy. "I do hear things, you know, John. It's nothing to be ashamed of and I trust you to let me know if your...feelings for Teyla start to affect your judgment in the field. If I thought it would cause any problems I would have done something by now, so you have nothing to worry a-"

"Okay, back up a minute there." She looked at him quizzically, but it was nothing to the look of confusion on his face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry if you think it's none of my business, but-"

"That's got nothing to do with it. If what you was saying were true then, yeah, I might be a little...annoyed about you bringing it up, but as it is, not so much annoyed as confused as all hell. There's nothing between me and Teyla. Never has been, don't think there ever will be."

"Oh."

John frowned, but a slow smirk made its way onto his face. She seemed a little too pleased by his answer. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

"So we're okay?" he finally asked.

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"Just making sure."

She smiled. "Understandable, I guess, we did spend most of yesterday trying to kill each other."

"Not us." He grinned. "And then there was the, uh, well, you know…what Caldwell said."

"Also not us," she said, still staring ahead, although he thought he saw her glance at him momentarily. He looked at her again, smirking when he spotted that her lips were twitching, almost, but not quite smiling.

"Yeah," he agreed, leaning once more on his elbows and looking out to see. "Also not us."

_Might have to think about changing that one day._

xxxxx

**The End**

xxxxx

You guys can decide whose thoughts those were at the end.

So seriously, let me know if you think I can write the characters well enough to actually put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and start writing my epic. It might be a little while before you see it, because (due to the fact that I don't really want to have yet another longstanding WiP) I might want to finish it before posting, or, at the very least, have a substantial part of it done.

Hope you enjoyed.


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